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the 13th of July, when the thermometer stood at
84 degrees Fahrenheit, and next to this, on the
27th of July, it was at 83.5 degrees. The lowest
temperature in the year was 27.4 degrees, and it
was registered on the 1st of March; but frequently
during the first three months of the year, the
thermometer was below the freezing point.
The influence of temperature in the death-rate
of the City population is shown in Tables No. I.
and No. III. of the Appendix; and you will observe
that, in almost every district of the City, the largest
mortality is in the winter months, when the inclemency
of the weather exerts its influence on the
aged and feeble. This was not so in former times,
when, in consequence of the bad sanitary condition
of many of the City districts, the effects of the
cold of winter were completely masked by those
of the heat of summer—"the higher temperature
acting in some sort as a test of defective sanitary
conditions, and giving to the several local causes of
endemic disease an augmentation of activity and
virulence." This was the remark of Mr. Simon in
1853, but it no longer applies in 1866; for even
with an epidemic of cholera, the mortality in
the City during the summer months has been, in
almost every district, less than that of the winter
season.
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